


of queens and girls in raincoats

by Jace_Diaz_Of_Hell



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, have fun reading!, i'll write a self insert if i want to, i'm no coward, this is just something i'll write for fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-10 07:39:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14732762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jace_Diaz_Of_Hell/pseuds/Jace_Diaz_Of_Hell
Summary: She remembers the Evil Queen, ruby-red lips curling in a smile as the Queen holds out a hand to her.And then she wakes up, and those memories dissolve.





	1. Chapter 1

_Her name was Coraline Jones, though she didn't remember it._

 

_Once, she had had a husband. Once, she was an expectant mother. Once, she had a family._

 

_She only remembers these things when she sleeps._

 

_It's only as she lies alone in her bright pink house, eyelids shut and eyes glancing back and forth without seeing, that she remembers._

 

_She remembers Wybie. Trenchcoats and skeleton gloves, springy brown curls and his playful smiles. The way he ran with her after his grandmother died, going from world to world. Every time being welcomed because tales of the hero Coraline and her best friend were in that Book._

 

_There was evil to hunt, and magic to learn, because the beldam marked her and infused her with magic of her own._

 

_She remembers becoming Coraline Lovat. She remembers raincoats and rings made of iron, with enchanted stones. She remembers quiet promises under trees, with an odd magician with scaled skin as the officiator. She remembers the guests- a bandit, a werewolf, a bookworm._

 

_She remembers that the magician gave her and Wybie a gift._

 

_**(“As long as you live, you shan't wish for adventure!”)** _

 

_(She wishes then that she had asked the charming pirate from a previous town to officiate the wedding.)_

 

 

_She remembers the beldam squeezing the ruby-red heart, remembers it turning to ash at its fingertips.She remembers the **rage** of her magic lashing out, sending the beldam far away and collapsing into the ground._

 

_She remembers the Evil Queen, offering a hand to her, those blood-red lips curling in a smile._

 

“ _Come. The woods is no place for a mother-to-be.”_

 

_And then she wakes up, and those memories dissolve in an instant._

 

Her name is Veronica Williams. Her daughter is named Vanessa, after Wyatt's grandfather. Wyatt had been murdered shortly before Vanessa's birth.

 

Vanessa is a beautiful child, with her husband's semi-dark skin and springy curls, and with Veronica's purplish eyes.

 

They have a house with a black cat, who twines around their ankles, tripping up the toddler and meowing for food and generally causing small chaos. He doesn't have a name. Veronica has never seen a need to give him one.

 

She works for the local newspaper, _The Storybrooke Mirror,_ and the only semi-interesting things in her life is Vanessa's friendship with Henry and Veronica occasionally breaking into Sidney's office to scream at him.

 

She greets the mayor in the mornings and ignores the way her heart leaps when the mayor smiles at her.

 

And things are boring, but they're okay.

 

Until the night that Henry goes missing, and later returns with the woman he claims is his biological mother.

 

Veronica, holding a sheaf of paper that is almost entirely crossed out with red, watches this and knows things are about to get interesting.

 


	2. Chapter 2

_“We could do it, you know.” Coraline whispered to Wybie. He looked over at her, her bluish hair slightly dusted with the dirt they were lying in. Her purple eyes were scanning the stars, and her lips were slightly swollen from kissing._

_Wybie couldn't help but think in that moment she was_ beautiful, _painfully so._

_“Do what?” He asked, to humor her._

_She sat up, her raincoat falling off her shoulders from where it had been a makeshift blanket. Wybie sat up too, propping himself back on his trenchcoat._

_“Run, Wybie, we could run!” She exclaimed, eyes flashing in the dark. “It would be so easy.I have some beans- Spink and Forcible gave them to me, you know. And... it's not like there's anything here for me now but you 'n the cat, since Mom died and Dad went through that Portal.”_

_Wybie still heard the pain in her voice, two years later, as they both recalled the night the other mother had decided to take her revenge. Mel Jones had seen a girl wandering across the street and swerved to avoid her, wrapping her car around a tree.  And that same night, Charlie Jones had accidentally fallen through one of the portals the Cat regularly utilized._

_At the site of the car wreck, Coraline had found an old and worn doll, heavily charred by fire and hardly recognizable._

_And where her father had fallen through, Coraline found the buttons that the Cat had torn out of the Beldam's eyes._

_At thirteen years old she would have become a ward of the state, but Grandma Lovat had decided to take her in._

_And now, at fifteen, she wanted to leave._

_Wybie considered the choices, but in the end he knew he couldn't leave yet._

_“How about this, Jonesy: When my Grandma dies, we'll take the Cat and go. But right now, Grandma needs us.”_

_Coraline nodded slightly, if a bit reluctantly, before taking his hand and falling silent again, watching the stars. Wybie rubbed gentle circles into her hand with his thumb._

_They would be okay._

_–_

 

“What the _hell,_ Glass?”

 

The smug look on Sidney's face made Veronica want to lunge across the desk and backhand him.

 

“I'm sorry?” He said simply, and Veronica's eyes narrowed.

 

“You had _better_ be fucking sorry.” She snapped, trying not to resort to violence. That would lose her her job, for sure. “You massacred my article!”

 

At this Sidney _chuckled,_ and it was all Veronica could do not to scream.

 

“Ah, yes. Well, Miss Williams, I am the editor-in-chief of this paper and it _is_ my job to correct the articles I see fit.”

 

“Cut the crap, Glass.” She said, slamming her hand down on the desk. “You didn't just _edit_ my article, you damn near rewrote it entirely.”

 

“Then consider it a comment on your need to improve.” He said, and Veronica couldn't help but make a frustrated screeching sound somewhat similar to a bird. She spun on her heel and stormed out of the office, stuffing her massacred article and her laptop into a bag.

 

She headed out of the building, forming every horrible insult she could think of and wishing she could yell them at Glass without her employment being terminated.

 

She intended on going to Granny's and buying the biggest cup of coffee she could, then fuming over her boss with Ruby.

 

Pushing her hair back over her shoulders with an annoyed huff, she saw the Mayor coming and managed to stop just before she could crash into her.

 

“I'm sorry Madam Mayor,” She said instantly, her anger temporarily on hold. “I need to pay more attention to where I'm going.”

 

The Mayor quirked an eyebrow, the slightest hint of a smile playing on the corners of her mouth.

 

“That's alright, Miss Williams. If you don't mind me asking, what has you so distracted today?”

 

Veronica was unable to suppress an annoyed sigh, reminded of Sidney.

 

“Let's just say my boss seems to enjoy driving me to the brink of insanity.”

 

At this the Mayor _definitely_ smiled, shrugging.

 

“That Sidney _is_ quite a handful.”

 

Veronica nodded enthusiastically, scowling and preparing to answer, but the mayor looked down at her watch.

 

“I'm afraid it's time for me to be picking Henry up,” She said apologetically, but smiled. “Maybe I'll see you around and we can talk about this some more?”

 

_Holy shit._

Veronica couldn't help but grin, nodding once more.

 

“I would love to. I need to pick up Vanessa, myself. Have a nice day, Madam Mayor!”

 

With that, she began walking towards the school, only to be stopped by the mayor's voice.

 

“Call me Regina.”


End file.
